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a long time by the -very nature of our
occupation in the home which the
men made us take.
"Then, the rneii discovered that we
could be" of use to themoutside the
home.:
"They cast us out of the home and
into the factories and the mills and
the stores.
"Slid there again they monopolized
our services and controlled us.
"And they strove to "keep us still
individualists lest we unite and be
come stronger than they.
"I say', because I very earnestly feel
that'itis true, that the only way we
have of forcing the men to give us
justice is by organization. .
"Organization will not be easy for
you girls. You will find that the men
who accuse us of individualism are
only too anxious to prevent us from
becoming anything but individualists.
"put J.,tell you that the only way
in which working women and all
other women can help themselves is
by organizing.
"I was asked to get accounts of
these meetings and the story of how
you.girls are battling and what you
areiattling for into the newspapers.
I"
Mrs. McCormick halted for a mo
ment. Her face paled. She clutched
at -a table.
"But I know how impossible that
is," she continued at last. "I know
only too well how your employers,
the department store owners, control
the newspapers through their adver
tising columns. I know only too
well"
"Again Mrs. McCormick paused.
She swayed on her feet. She thrust
out one hand gropingly, appealingly.
"I I'm" awfully sorry," she said.
"Pardon me, but I I feel faint."
'Mary McDowell was just in "time to
catch her, as her knees gave way
beneath her and she sagged toward
the floor. '
For five full minutes, the women
on th6 platform worked, frantically
pver the-unconscious society woman. f
Then Mary McDowell called for
volunteers, and three men from the
audience carried the limp form out of
the hall, down the stairs to the street
entrance on Washington.
There a number or men. and wo
men stripped off their cjats and im
provised a couch, on which Mrs. Mc
Cormick was laid. Physicians had
arrived by this time, and they attend
ed her.
But it was fifteen minutes later be
fore the society-woman-mother was
able to struggle weakly to her feet. '
And then "she wanted to go back
into the stuffy" hall and finish her
speech, to the department store girls.
- "I I want to do it," she said. "I'm
awfully sorry I disturbed the meet-:
ing the way I did.. It it was awfully
foolish. I want to go 'back now."
But her friends would not let her,
and she was put In Mrs. Joseph T.
Bowen's automobile'" and hurried to
her home. v
Mrs. McCormick is better today,
but the doctors who are in attend
ance on her shake their heads grave
ly and sayi
"She shouldn't havejlone it. She.
shouldn't Tiave done itT She was still
weak from the suffering she went
through in the ordeal of motherhood!
And she shouldn't have done itv"
'Perhaps she. shouldn't.
But Ruth -Hanna McCormick,
daughter of a millionaire and wife of
a millionaire, evidently thought it was
her duty to 'stand by the side of her
struggling-sisters who are fighting
fearful odds.
She. evidently thought it her duty
to tell them face to face and eye to '
eye how, much she 'would like to help
them. j. '
And-she wasn't afraid to'tell them
why the news of their meetings and
their struggles to better themselves .)
have been suppressed in the trust
newspapers.
And wien Ruth Hanha McCormick
did -that she did one of the bravest
things that any man or woman In
Chicago can dor She' defied the most